The home of theoretical physics group and quantized musings blog at the University of Nevada, Reno

Pauli's letter or the importance of technical details

This is one of my favorite illustrations of the importance of technical details. Below I am posting a figure from a paper by Peter Woit, where the Pauli's letter is displayed.

In 1958, Wolfgang Pauli sent letters to some fellow physicists, making fun of Werner Heisenberg's exaggerated claims to have developed a successful unified
theory. A copy of his letter to J. Robert Oppenheimer is shown here.

The letter says: Comment on Heisenberg Radio advertisement.This is to show the world that I can paint like Titian. [Empty frame with jagged sides]. Only technical details are missing.